By Mark Anthony Neal | With thanks to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Thursday, September 11, 2014.

Thanks to my mother, I’ve been a reader since I was a toddler; I’m sure if you asked me  at the time, I would have said that The Berenstain Bears’ The Bike Lesson was atop the list of books that changed my life.  Truth is that as a child, periodicals like Weekly Reader (which we read aloud at the R.T. Hudson Seventh Day Adventist School) Highlights for Children, Baseball Digest and The New York Daily News tended to be my favorite reads. 

Books became the matter when I started to want to live in a world of ideas as opposed to a world of facts. Reading books like John Gardner’s Grendel (1971) and Albert Camus’s The Stranger in high school—a big shout-out to the English department at Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the nation’s premiere high schools for engineering—were indeed life changing experiences.

The list below reflects an admittedly truncated list of books that have helped shape my adult worldview—and in many ways they all continue to change my life.

Enemies the Clash of Races (1978)– Haki Madhubuti

Fitting to start with Madhubuti’s Enemies, in that the book contains his own list of must reads, a list that I dutifully engaged.  The book was a gift from  then Donald Smith—now Nation of Islam Minister Abdul Halim Muhammad (Buffalo, NY)—during my first year in college, and it unlocked a ferocious curiosity that continues to this day. 

The Black Poets (1971)—ed. Dudley Randall

Pretty sure that this is a book I purchased during my first trip to the old Liberation Bookstore in Harlem.  Probably stayed in my knapsack continuously for  five years, especially in those years when I fancied myself as a poet (this in the years before Spoken Word).  A reminder today that my undergraduate concentration was in creative writing.  After beating the first one to shit—something to be said about every book on this list—I purchased a replacement from Amazon a few years ago.  What I wouldn’t give to spend an hour or two in Liberation, now.

The Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988) – Nelson George

I read Nelson’s columns in Billboard Magazine and The Village Voice religiously in the early 1980s; The Death of Rhythm and Blues was confirmation that writing criticism of Black music was something I could do, and make a living (though not the way I thought at the time).  The Death of Rhythm and Blues led me to Baraka’s Blues People, and for that I’ll always be thankful.

Yearning: Race, Gender, and Culture (1991)—bell hooks

Procured during a trip to Toronto during the summer of 1992—a time in my life, where I remember, that I didn’t go anywhere without trying to find a good bookstore and a good record store. Felt like contraband when I bought it; bell made the life of the mind as sexy as hell (and with no footnotes).

Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) – Greg Tate

Like Nelson, had been reading Tate religiously in the Voice.  More than twenty-years after its publication, still a little Stannish in Tate’s presence. But this book tho;  Like Jelani Cobb always makes me want to head to the shed, with Greg, it’s like there ain’t no shed that even exist for no shit like Tate’s.  Bought Flyboy at the same time I bought bell’s Yearning; my teachers will tell you that they both were all up in my early scholarly writing. Think about Flyboy a lot these days, as I plot the next scene, and look forward to getting back to my own shit.

Forty Three Septembers (1993)  – Jewelle Gomez

Been reading Alexis De Veaux’s Yabo this summer in small sips—it takes me places I ain’t quite ready to inhabit right now; I only mention that because it was while sitting in my first graduate seminar with De Veaux – on Black and Red Feminism – during the fall of 1993 that I first read Gomez’s work.  It was a decade later when I was working on New Black Man when I realized how much Forty Three Septembers had influenced me.  Teaching Gomez’s The Gilda Stories remains one of my favorite teaching experiences.

Reflecting Black: African American Cultural Criticism (1993) – Michael Eric Dyson

It was the paragraph where he critically broke down Michael Jordan’s connection to a Black aesthetic.  More than African American cultural criticism, it was like micro-criticism; Dyson’s genius has always been in the small details, something folk are likely to miss if they don’t actually read his writing. Always thankful that this was the first Dyson that I read—still have the review that I wrote for The Leader—because it provided faith for the path that I was going to take.

Writin’ is Fightin’: Thirty Three Years of Boxing on Paper (1988)– Ishmael Reed

First read Ishmael during a transitional period before grad school; teaching high school during the day, and working the front desk at an NYU dorm from 4pm-midnight; me and BX Golden sharing a tiny, tiny spot up in the Bronx. Passed some of the time reading Reed’s non-fiction, including, Writin’ is Fightin. Bought it at the old St. Marks bookstore in the East Village; same spot I bought  the Henry Dumas’s collection Knee of a Natural Man, during my 8pm “lunch” break. Ishmael and I disagree on a fair amount of things—and we’ve had online conversations to that affect—but lawd that dude can write.  My favorite non-fiction style-guide.

Race Rebels (1994)—Robin D.G. Kelley

Tate and Tricia Rose in the Acura Integra talking about the new shit—Cassandra Wilson’s first joint working with Craig Street and this cat Robin Kelley coming to NYU from Michigan.  Tracked down some seriously obscure piece R. Kelley had written about Black folk in Birmingham; was standing at Talking Leaves Books when they opened the box with Race Rebels; joint is all up in the diss/first book. Every youngun that wants to write about Black Popular Culture, I send them to Race Rebels first.

In Search of the Black Fantastic (2008) – Richard Iton

Richard was a good friend/colleague—and I had digital front seat to so much of his thought process while he was working on this book.  The book has fundamentally impacted how I think about many things popular—something I reflect on throughout Looking for Leroy—but it’s the book itself that reminds me that we must do the work that we want to do now or we might not be around to do so.  Thankful that Richard stayed with us long enough to leave this gift.